Drone’s-Eye View Captures Art Homage To Lost Sydney Landmark

Sydney’s Royal Botanic Garden was once home to a vast building. Completed in 1879, the Garden Palace was a purpose-built exhibition hall, constructed for the Sydney International Exhibition. Modelled on London’s Crystal Palace, it was a cathedral-sized structure with a more than 112,000 square meterage footprint, but on the morning of 22 September 1882, it was engulfed by fire and completely destroyed.

A new public artwork currently under construction will give Sydneysiders the rare opportunity to revisit this once epic landmark. Wiradjuri-Kamilaroi artist Jonathan Jones’ latest work for Kaldor Public Art Projects, barrangal dyara (which tranaslates as "skin and bones"), uses 15,000 white Aboriginal shields to mark out the footprint of the Garden Palace. A “dynamic native meadow of Kangaroo grass” will sprout up where the building’s dome once stood, and sound installations featuring eight Indigenous languages will be dispersed around the site.

With an artwork so sprawling, it’s difficult to fully appreciate at ground level, but thanks to some nifty drone videography, courtesy of leading arts website Daily Review, the impact of the whole piece is easy to see.

Barrangal dyara opens to the public from 17 Sep to 3 Oct.